Carrying on professor's passion: power for the poor

Chronicle Columnist

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, June 17, 2012

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Graduating engineering students (L to R) Sutyen Zalawada, Mike Sizemore, Ross Pimentel and Sandeep Lele share a light moment before commencement exercises for Santa Clara University students in Santa Clara, Calif. on Saturday, June 16, 2012. The group is continuing the research in alternative energy that their associate professor, Dan Strickland, was working on before he died in an auto accident last year. less

Graduating engineering students (L to R) Sutyen Zalawada, Mike Sizemore, Ross Pimentel and Sandeep Lele share a light moment before commencement exercises for Santa Clara University students in Santa Clara, ... more

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

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Rick Strickland watches graduates walk into Buck Shaw stadium for Santa Clara University commencement exercises in Santa Clara, Calif. on Saturday, June 16, 2012. Four engineeering students are continuing the alternative energy research that Strickland's son Dan was working on before his death in an auto accident last year. less

Rick Strickland watches graduates walk into Buck Shaw stadium for Santa Clara University commencement exercises in Santa Clara, Calif. on Saturday, June 16, 2012. Four engineeering students are continuing the ... more

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

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Associate professor of Santa Clara University Dan Strickland died last Fall in a car accident.

Associate professor of Santa Clara University Dan Strickland died last Fall in a car accident.

Photo: Santa Clara University

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Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak shakes hands with Ross Pimentel during commencement exercises for Santa Clara University students in Santa Clara, Calif. on Saturday, June 16, 2012. Pimentel is among a group of engineering students that are continuing the research in alternative energy that their associate professor, Dan Strickland, was working on before he died in an auto accident last year. Wozniak was presented with an honorary Engineering Leadership doctorate by the university. less

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak shakes hands with Ross Pimentel during commencement exercises for Santa Clara University students in Santa Clara, Calif. on Saturday, June 16, 2012. Pimentel is among a group of ... more

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

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Graduating engineering student Mike Sizemore hugs Rick Strickland during commencement exercises for Santa Clara University students in Santa Clara, Calif. on Saturday, June 16, 2012. Sizemore is among a group of students continuing the research in alternative energy that their associate professor, Rick's son Dan Strickland, was working on before he died in an auto accident last year. less

Graduating engineering student Mike Sizemore hugs Rick Strickland during commencement exercises for Santa Clara University students in Santa Clara, Calif. on Saturday, June 16, 2012. Sizemore is among a group ... more

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

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Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak delivers the commencement speech to graduates at the Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, Calif. on Saturday, June 16, 2012. Wozniak was presented with an honary Engineering Leadership doctorate by the university. less

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak delivers the commencement speech to graduates at the Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, Calif. on Saturday, June 16, 2012. Wozniak was presented with an honary Engineering ... more

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

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Sandeep Lele (left), Sutyen Zalawada (center) and Mike Sizemore attend commencement exercises for Santa Clara University students in Santa Clara, Calif. on Saturday, June 16, 2012. The Engineering graduates are continuing the research in alternative energy that their associate professor, Dan Strickland, was working on before he died in an auto accident last year. less

Sandeep Lele (left), Sutyen Zalawada (center) and Mike Sizemore attend commencement exercises for Santa Clara University students in Santa Clara, Calif. on Saturday, June 16, 2012. The Engineering graduates are ... more

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

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Engineering graduate Mike Sizemore bear hugs Santa Clara University President Michael Engh at the commencement ceremony in Santa Clara, Calif. on Saturday, June 16, 2012. Sizemore is among a group of students continuing the research in alternative energy that their associate professor, Dan Strickland, was working on before he died in an auto accident last year. less

Engineering graduate Mike Sizemore bear hugs Santa Clara University President Michael Engh at the commencement ceremony in Santa Clara, Calif. on Saturday, June 16, 2012. Sizemore is among a group of students ... more

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

Carrying on professor's passion: power for the poor

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Daniel Strickland often told his students, "If something needs to be done, you stay as long as you need to get it done."

The 27-year-old associate professor at Santa Clara University died in a car accident last fall, but a group of his engineering students is honoring the advice. They graduated Saturday, but will stay at school to finish a project that builds on Strickland's work and promises to improve the way power is delivered in the developing world.

"If we implement it correctly, if we can bring the cost down, and if we can get it to people, it can mean sustainable energy production for people without power at all," said Michael Sizemore, one of Strickland's students. "The connection of energy to standard of living is huge. It allows you to raise yourself up and engage with the world."

When it came time for college, Strickland told his parents he wanted to study business. But they strongly encouraged him to pursue an engineering degree to develop technical skills as well.

At Seattle University, a pair of his professors turned him on to fuel cells, which generally convert hydrogen and oxygen into energy and water. They have higher storage capacity than batteries of comparable size, and continually produce clean energy as long as they have fuel.

Business ceased to factor in Strickland's academic plans. In 2006, he won a National Science Foundation fellowship to study fuel cells at UC Irvine. From there, he went on to earn a master's degree and doctorate in mechanical engineering from Stanford - in just four years. His dissertation focused on new water-management techniques for fuel cells, which could eliminate the need for the usual pumps and heating systems. These reduce the byproducts of the energy production process, but also gobble up about 30 percent of the power.

Power options for poor

An ideal application for the technology would become clear when Strickland landed as an assistant professor at Santa Clara, a Jesuit school focused on providing humanitarian aid throughout developing countries.

About 1.4 billion people around the world lack access to electricity, 15 percent of the global population, according to a 2010 report from the United Nations and the International Energy Agency. An additional billion have unreliable access to the power grid.

As a result, billions cook with unhealthy biomass, resulting in an estimated 1.5 million premature deaths every year. Entire villages have no way to reliably store food or medical supplies. Students can't read after dark. And farmers and entrepreneurs are cut off from the wider world.

For basic needs, many rural areas with limited access to the power grid have come to rely on "flooded lead-acid" battery arrays that store energy from simple solar and wind systems.

But because people don't understand how to manage them properly, they often inadvertently shorten the products' lives. Among other things, they'll fill them with water from streams instead of the distilled variety required.

Without the proper local infrastructure for recycling, people dump or burn these dead batteries. They end up polluting the water supply and topsoil with lead and other carcinogens.

A sense of mission

Every student in Santa Clara's engineering school must complete a senior design project. Shortly after he arrived at Santa Clara, Strickland recruited five young men for one he had in mind: a prototype of his regenerative fuel cell specifically designed for use in developing countries.

Such a system offers several potential benefits in that setting: They are more energy efficient than ordinary fuel cells and have higher capacity than batteries. They require much less on-the-ground maintenance, introducing fewer opportunities for operator error. And they're not filled with toxic chemicals and metals.

The project clearly fit with Santa Clara's Jesuit mission to "cultivate persons engaged in a wide variety of occupations for service to humanity." It clearly fit with Strickland's life philosophy, too.

He wasn't Catholic, but he was a dedicated Christian. His parents named their only son after the Old Testament prophet Daniel. Throughout his life, he volunteered with food kitchens and youth groups. He was a member of the choir at the Menlo Park Presbyterian Church.

"We have a responsibility to society; life is more than just you and what you can get out of it," said Rick Strickland, Daniel's father. "He had that in him always. He totally believed that. That's why he was doing that research."

To ensure the design of the fuel cell would meet the needs of local populations, Strickland and his students traveled to Nicaragua in the late summer of 2011. They conducted fieldwork in an area called Bluefields, where the power was out about six hours a day, and Monkey Point, which was a three-hour trip from the nearest permanent energy source.

'He was more our friend'

On the trip, the students and Strickland bonded over shared challenges and adversities: bucket showers, giant spiders, rickety canoes and unstable hammocks. They walked miles carrying trees for a planting project and dug wells with equipment antiquated by 19th century standards.

But at night, they shared stories and laughs over simple meals.

"He was more or less our age, so he didn't really seem like he was our professor," said Sandeep Lele, a student in the group. "It was kind of like he was more our friend, though there was that respect.

"It was a special relationship," Lele said. "He was a great mentor and a friend."

Tragedy and resolve

Weeks after they returned, on a Thursday night in late September, Strickland was driving south on Interstate 280, just north of Alpine Road near Stanford. He hit a deer and stalled in the lane. Moments later, a car crashed into him from behind.

Strickland suffered major head trauma and died the next day at Stanford Hospital. Because he was a registered donor, Strickland's organs went to help five critically ill patients.

Faced with the loss of their mentor and friend, Lele, Sizemore and the other students were left with a choice: give up the project or persevere. As much as they wanted to honor his legacy and work, there were real questions about whether the group had the technical knowledge to push on without him. Even other faculty members didn't possess the specific expertise.

But they decided to try.

"What really kept us on the project was that emotional tie," Sizemore said. "It wasn't about a development of the technology. It was more a continuation of our friend's work, of our friend's passion."

The students did much of the remaining research and work on their own, but succeeded in completing the prototype.

In April, the team won a $90,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency, in the "People, Prosperity and the Planet" competition in Washington, D.C.

Good out of bad

With the research funding in hand, four of the five members of Strickland's original group are dedicating themselves to the project for the next two years, using it as their master's thesis projects at Santa Clara.

To be sure, real challenges remain before the fuel cells can be efficiently delivered to developing communities.

"In order for the technology to become appropriate will require a significant reduction in cost and evolution in local markets needed to supply, repair and maintain the systems in rural markets," Christian Casillas, an energy researcher at UC Berkeley, said in an e-mail. "This won't happen anytime soon."

But the students will be focused on some of those challenges in the next phase of their work, specifically looking for materials that will be cost-effective. In the end, they hope the fuel cells will reach and help the poorest regions of the world.

"This was a tragedy, but they came together for something bigger," Rick Strickland said. "Even though something terrible happened, good is still coming from it."

James Temple is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Dot.commentary runs three times each week. E-mail: jtemple@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@jtemple

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